the anxious poet’s podcast

The books or articles quoted in my commentary are:

Binding the Strong Man : A Political Reading of Mark's Gospel by Ched Myers

What Jesus Meant by Gary Wills

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: The Spiral of Violence - Wednesday, October 21, 2015 - 

https://cac.org/daily-meditations/world-flesh-devil-spiral-violence-2015-10-21/

Any reflections, comments, thoughts, and perhaps your own idea of a retelling in your setting, please send to me at

[email protected]

You can read the text and see accompanying material on my substack - https://adriangrscott.substack.com

The books quoted in my commentary are:

A Poor Man Called Jesus by Jose Cardenas Pallares 

The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian D. McLaren

Pope Leo's Homily for Palm Sunday - Read Here

Any reflections, comments, thoughts, and perhaps your own idea of a retelling in your setting, please send to me at

[email protected]

You can read the text and see accompanying material on my substack - https://adriangrscott.substack.com

The books quoted in my commentary are:

The Gospel In Solentiname - Ernesto Cardenal 

Jon Sobrino - Spiritual Writings - Ed Robert Lassalle-Klein

Christology At The Crossroads- Jon Sobrino 

The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian D. McLaren

Any reflections, comments, thoughts, and perhaps your own idea of a retelling in your setting, please send to me at

[email protected]

You can read the text and see accompanying material on my substack - https://adriangrscott.substack.com

The books quoted in my commentary are:

The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian D. McLaren

A Poor Man Called Jesus by Jose Cardenas Pallares 

Any reflections, comments, thoughts, and perhaps your own idea of a retelling in your setting, please send to me at

[email protected]

You can read the text and see accompanying material on my substack - https://adriangrscott.substack.com

The book quoted in my commentary is:

The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian D. McLaren

Any reflections, comments, thoughts, and perhaps your own idea of a retelling in your setting, please send them to me at

[email protected]

You can read the text and see accompanying material on my Substack - https://adriangrscott.substack.com

The books quoted in my commentary are:

The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian D. McLaren

A Poor Man Called Jesus by Jose Cardenas Pallares 

The Great Turning - From Empire to Earth Community by David C Korten 

Any reflections, comments, thoughts, and perhaps your own idea of a retelling in your setting, please send to me at

[email protected]

You can read the text and see accompanying material on my substack - https://adriangrscott.substack.com

The Hermeneutic Circle I mention is from this book: The Liberation of Theology (1976), written by Juan Luis Segundo, S.J., translated by John Drury, and published by Orbis Books. The second book mentioned is The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian D. McLaren. The Third is The Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle. 

Here is a link to the Good News translation that I reference. Good News Translation

Here is a link to the Message Translation, which is useful if you are very familiar with the text and need a fresh take. The Message Translation

To read along with the test of the reports, go to my Substack - https://adriangrscott.substack.com/

With gratitude to Andy Selman for the background music to the Jingle. 

With thanks to Wilma Scott for the artwork that she did for the original publication, which I have reproduced here. 

Also with gratitude to Mick Donelan, whom I met all those years ago (1980) in Ray Alan Manshops on Pinstone Street in Sheffield. 

Finally, thanks to Fr. Christopher Posluszny of St. Mary's Cathedral in Sheffield for inviting me to speak to his catechumens under the title 'Meet the Jesus of the gospels', which gave me the idea in the first place. 

If you want to read Mark's Gospel for yourself, the Bible Gateway website is good. 

Here is a link to the Good News translation that I reference. Good News Translation

Here is a link to the Message Translation, which is useful if you are very familiar with the text and need a fresh take. The Message Translation

The Poems recited are as follows:

BC: AD By U.A. Fanthorpe |Christmas Poem By Wendell Berry | Song of the Shepherds By Richard Bauckham | The Hope Of The Few By Ian Adams | Born in You By Ian Adams | A Christmas Blessing By John O'Donohue.

The music we used in the Scared Space for Christmas 2025 that you might want to listen to was:

Shepherds Arise – Kate Rusby |O Antiphons – Floriani |Blake's Lullaby - The Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Daniel Hyde & Britten Sinfonia |Little Town - Over the Rhine |Benedictus (The Canticle of Zechariah) (feat. Rebecca De La Torre) - The Modern Psalmist |With This Love - Peter Gabriel |No Body (feat. Matt Maher) - Chris Renzema |Joseph - Kate Rusby |Visita, quaesumus Domine - The Cambridge Singers & John Rutter |Magnificat anima mea Dominum - The Tallis Scholars & Peter Phillips.

The episode of the Grim Up North Podcast can be found here. Series Two - Episode Six

The Caravaggio painting can be viewed here. The Adoration of the Shepherds

This poem is from my first collection- The Call of the Unwritten this is available by clicking here . 

The photo in the podcast episode image is from https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Strider_%28chapter%29

The quote from CG Jung is as follows 

“We think we can congratulate ourselves on having already reached such a pinnacle of clarity, imagining that we have left all these phantasmal gods far behind.  But what we have left behind are only verbal spectres, not the psychic facts that were responsible for the birth of the gods.  We are still as much possessed by autonomous (forces) as if they were Olympians.  Today they are called phobias, obsessions, and so forth; in a word, neurotic symptoms.  The gods have become diseases; Zeus no longer rules Olympus but rather the solar plexus, and produces curious specimens for the doctor’s consulting room, or disorders of the brains of politicians and journalists who unwillingly let loose psychic epidemics on the world.” (Jung, Cw 13, par. 54)